One Woman's Opinion

Dancing in the Streets

Urbanna, Va.—An avid Obama supporter recently told me that on the night of his election there was “dancing in the streets.” Such expression spoke of burnout from the last unpopular presidency, but it did not show a grasp of knowledge or reality.

After four months of Obama’s presidency are we still dancing in the streets? Has it yet hit the glazed-eyed revelers that this president is grappling the best he can, just as Bush did, with the very serious problems that this nation faces and that he is making some very major fundamental mistakes?

How long before this administration understands that a nation cannot spend money it does not have? And that those countries that do spend with no regard to balanced budgets are headed for bankruptcy?

When I mentioned to my street dancer the massive leap in national debt in just the last four months, I heard an incredible reply, ”That’s Bush’s debt.”

by Mary Wakefield Buxton

Which goes to prove that politics is like a disease. Once a certain dogma takes over the brain, all rationality ceases. No matter what happens, the infected will always make excuses for its preferred political party.

America has suffered from too many presidents from both parties that spent money without concern. I don’t see a frugal political party today. Both parties promise voters benefits in order to be elected, without enough regard for balancing budgets.

Worse, voters don’t seem to care. So how can we expect politicians to stop pandering to voters when we don’t understand that we can’t have more government benefits unless we are willing to accept cuts in other areas—or pay higher taxes?

Politicians promise anything to be elected. But the greatest lie ever told that voters still apparently fall for is: ”The rich will pay for our government benefits.”

In April, I was so alarmed at the $2 trillion debt and the naïve plan to ask our friend, China, to loan us the money, along with having the U.S. Treasury merely printing the extra money needed, that I held a tea party in Urbanna.

But $2 trillion was just the beginning. We are now facing a future $10 trillion debt in 10 years as government rolls ever onward bailing out bankrupt corporations, changing the nation’s economy to “green” (causing even more bankruptcies), and rushing to legislate a “free” health system to serve all Americans.

The $2 trillion debt was bad enough. A recent figure in USA Today equated it to every household in America having a $545,668 federal debt hanging over its head. The street dancers may not be concerned by such figures, but they will wipe the smiles off most faces.

It is historical debt. The present Congress in just four months has managed to spend more than three times what Bush spent in his last term. The new debt will actually be more than the combined debt of every president since the beginning of the Republic.

Where are we going to get the money to pay for such staggering spending? How many American corporations and states (like bankrupted California) will taxpayers have to rescue? Do we even want government owning and operating failed businesses? Do we approve change from capitalism to socialism?

What about this health system reform? How do we pay for it? So far I have heard of two ideas beyond simply taxing “the rich.” One is to tax soda pop, which sounds inadequate. Another is to count health plan income as taxable income. But why would the federal government take money that has already been put aside by employers for health programs?

Do we even want government involved with health decisions? Reports are that some socialized health systems, such as in Great Britain, now refuse senior citizens certain treatments, such as kidney dialysis, because it is declared by English bureaucrats as “too expensive.”

How many taxes do we want to pay government? Some socialized countries have an effective tax rate that approaches confiscation when you add state, county and township taxation. Will there be anything left for workers after a hard day’s work? And how would the middle class ever hope to save money and one day reach their dreams under such high taxation?

Lastly, is it moral for any nation to spend so much money on itself that it bequeaths children and grandchildren a debt so high that they will never be able to repay—without ruinous inflation? What right do citizens today have to enslave future, unborn generations to such mountainous debt?